SECOND TEST - DAY FOUR

Well batted Belly - Prior gives Ian Bell a pat on the head as England declare the innings closed at 5 for 620

The question of whether England would bother to bat on or simply declare on their over night score was answered when Pietersen strode out with Bell to resume the massacre.

Pietersen was treating the Aussie bowling with contempt until he threw his wicket away for a career best 227 edging to slip off the innocuous Xavier Doherty, who will no doubt become a trivia question in years to come such will be his rapid disappearance from the national set up.

Bell and Prior threw the bat around a little bit before the declaration finally came with England's score standing on 5 for 620 - more than enough. Bell made a fluent sixty eight and Prior a chancy twenty seven.

So, the task in front of the Australian's was clear - bat for five and half sessions. A win was long ago out of the question - some would say after the first frenetic fifteen minutes of the test - but a draw was still a distant hope...especially as rain was a chance to be a factor.

Watson and Katich duly got Australia off to their usual galloping start by piling on an entertaining opening stand of eighty four before the hobbling Katich was dismissed for a gutsy forty three.

Ponting was the next to go when he was caught at slip by Collingwood off the probing spin of Swann for nine. In such desperate scenario's as this, Ponting needed to produce something special to give Australia the remotest of hope. Today was not Ponting's day, nor was this test Ponting's test. A miserable 150th test.

The big wicket - Ponting edges Swann to Collingwood for 9

Shane Watson played with his usual gusto and brought up his second half century of the match, before - the cynics might add predictably - Watson threw his hand away when looking set for a huge score. Watson's final tally of fifty seven was impressive in its compilation, but unfulfilled in it's promise and adds to a litany of scores over fifty, but under a hundred for a player in the form of his life.

As good as Watson has been over the last eighteen months or so, the critic's will always point to the fact that he has converted only two centuries from sixteenteen scores over fifty in his last seventeen tests since his rebirth as an opener at Headingley during the 2009 Ashes campaign. His average in that time stands at an impressive fifty plus, but the lack of regular centuries is an ongoing concern.

Watson's demise brought Michael Clarke to the crease - a man who has been in miserable form since his elevation from number five to number four in the batting order. Along with the obdurate Michael Hussey, together they represented Australia's last realistic - but forlorn hope of rescuing this test.

Michael Clarke batted well for his 80

Clarke and Hussey did not disappoint by batting with sensible aggression putting on 104 runs over thirty three overs. They looked to have almost completed the task of batting out the fourth day, so they could start afresh on day five and give Australia a glimmer of hope when disaster struck. Pietersen was thrown the ball for the last over of the day - more in jest than in any real expectation that he could effect a break through, when a ball spun viciously out of the rough and leapt at Clarke who could only edge the ball against his thigh guard which ballooned invitingly for Cook to complete the catch at short leg.

The English team converged on Pietersen knowing that the coup de grace had been dealt to Australia by the unlikeliest candidate. The Australian dressing room showed nearly all of the players clasping their heads in their hands - if it wasn't over yet, it pretty much was now.

Clarke departed the scene with the English players following as stumps had been called. Clarke's eighty was a welcome return to form, but much more was need to give Australia any hope of salvaging a draw from the wreckage.

Only Hussey stands in England's way - but for all his heroics thus far in the series, even Hussey cannot conjure a miracle out of this mess.

Only a tsunami like storm washing out the whole day can save Australia on day five.